


resilience is my promise

by calumshoods



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by The Walking Dead, M/M, Near Death Experiences, The Walking Dead AU, angsty quiet calum, ashtons career at kfc is alive and well, chatty ashton, emotional bonding over chocolate covered pretzels, idk how to tag things on here im still LEARNING, this isnt that violent just killing some zombies ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 06:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10380825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calumshoods/pseuds/calumshoods
Summary: The fire grows slowly as Calum takes a seat on the soft, wet ground and begins skinning the rabbit. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Ashton questions, watching intently as Calum preps their meal.Calum peers up at Ashton through his eyelashes. A shy grin grows on his face. “Man vs. Wild,” he chuckles lightly before turning his attention back to the task at hand.or the zombie apocalypse is well underway and calum saves ashton from getting eaten alive





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from no more bad days by this wild life
> 
> this is really poorly edited so please ignore all the mistakes i'll get around to fixing them soon i just wanted to get this up bc cashton is real and well and alive rn and it is TIMELY

The leaves crunch loudly underneath Ashton’s feet as he stumbles backward. He clenches his machete harder in his right hand and tries to keep his balance. The snapping of twigs and low groans of the approaching walkers is the only sound to be heard for miles around. He is entirely alone in the woods with three undead people and a giant knife he barely knows how to use.

He strikes before one of the walkers can take him down, crashing his machete into the skull of the man closest to him. Blood spatters across Ashton’s face as the walker goes down near his feet. The other two trail a few feet behind but are quickly staggering towards him.

Ashton uses his sleeve to wipe some blood from his face before he strikes the next walker in the head. He doesn’t use enough force behind his blow, though, and the walkers continue to converge upon him. He quickly goes for a second hit and knocks the half-dead body to the ground. It’s too late, though. The other walker has caught up to him and is knocking his body to the ground.

He grapples with the undead. There is a mess of writhing limbs and a snapping, bloodthirsty jaw. Terror wracks Ashton’s entire body. He thinks about death and loss and his family — all of whom had been lost to the disease. The infected man on top of Ashton makes a lunge for his throat and he finds himself bracing for the end. He shuts his eyes in anticipation.

The sudden crack of bone to metal, the warm splattering of blood across his face, and the ceasing of the low moans from the walker on top of him brings him back to attention. He feels the weight of the now dead body shift off of him and he looks up to see a tall boy standing in front of him, butcher knife coated in blood in his hand.

The two stare at each other for a minute. Ashton notices his big brown eyes and ruffled curly hair. In another life, he would have been his type.

“Thanks,” Ashton manages out when the silence begins to feel uncomfortable. He knows the word is not enough to express his gratitude — the complete stranger had just saved him from being eaten alive.

The other boys laughs. Ashton is not used to that sound — happiness, joy, carelessness. “Yeah, dude, no problem,” he answers. “I’m Calum.” He reaches down and offers Ashton a hand, both to shake and help pull him up.

“I’m Ashton.” He stands up and brushes the leaves and dirt off himself. It doesn’t do much — there is dirt and mud caked all over his body. “Seriously, thank you. I wasn’t quite ready to be, uh, eaten,” he says, realizing how morbid the whole situation is as the words pass his lips.

Calum nods. His eyes travel around the surrounding area. “Are you alone?” Calum questions after a moment of silence.

Ashton shakes his head. “Been alone for awhile now,” he answers. He trudges over to where he discarded his backpack when he heard the walkers coming across him. “What about you?”

“I, um — yeah, I’m alone,” he stutters. Ashton furrows his brow, not entirely convinced by Calum’s hesitation. It was hard to trust people these days. Calum sees Ashton doubt and justifies his uncertainty. “I was with a group up until a few days ago but the creeps, um — I’m alone now.”

Ashton smirks. “You call ‘em creeps?”

“Guess I do,” Calum laughs softly. “Listen, if you don’t have a place to go or anything, I’m posted up in a house just north of here. It’s not much, but it seems pretty secure.”

“Seriously?” Ashton is shocked by the stranger’s kindness. He hadn’t come across many people who were nice enough to save your life and offer you a place to stay.

“If I leave you out here alone, I’ll probably end up saving your ass a few more times while I’m out, anyways. Might as well cut out you potentially getting attacked and save my energy, right?” Calum offers. It seems like a joke, but his face is relatively serious.

“Makes enough sense to me. As long as you promise to not sacrifice me to a walker when the going gets tough,” Ashton replies after a moment of thought.

Calum laughs. “I’ll do my best.” Calum starts walking off through the woods and Ashton trails behind. They don’t talk much as they walk — staying quiet is key and they both know that.

They stumble upon a decrepit house a few minutes later. House is a stretch — it’s a one room shack, covered in ivy with boarded up windows and a crumbling foundation. Calum pushes open the door with his left hand, wielding his knife in his right hand. He surveys the inside of the building for any stray walkers that may have picked up his scent in the area and wandered inside. Ashton follows his example and peaks around corners to make sure the coast is clear. When they affirm that they’re alone in the house, Ashton lets the door thump shut behind him softly and they are plunged into darkness, the only source of light coming from the sun peeking through cracks in the walls.

The flick of a switch sounds and warm, yellow light shines out in beams from a small lantern in the middle of the room. Ashton takes a moment to actually take in the interior and what is around him instead of looking around for flesh-eating zombies. It is exactly what Ashton expected. The wooden floorboards are filthy and sticking up in some areas. Calum sits on a cot in the corner. There is a wood burning stove in the opposite corner covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Ashton tries not to think about all the spiders that are crawling around on the ground beneath him.

Calum begins to rifle through his backpack and pulls out something wrapped in a cloth. “Rabbit,” he tells Ashton when he notices him eyeing the bundle. “Caught it in a trap I made. I’m gonna cook it out back on a fire. You want to come stand guard over me?” Calum gathers a few things from around the room — a dented frying pan, a smaller knife, and a book of matches, from what Ashton can see — and the pair creeps out of the house and around the back quickly and quietly.

There was a smile pile of firewood stacked next to the shack. Calum motions towards it as if to tell Ashton to grab some. Ashton picks up a few larger logs and follows Calum to a spot where he had evidently been building fires. Ashes fill the small makeshift pit that is rimmed with rocks. Ashton drops the firewood into the ditch and Calum rips a small piece of fabric from the wrapping around the rabbit. He sticks the fabric beneath the wood and uses a match to light it.

The fire grows slowly as Calum takes a seat on the soft, wet ground and begins skinning the rabbit. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Ashton questions, watching intently as Calum preps their meal.

Calum peers up at Ashton through his eyelashes. A shy grin grows on his face. “Man vs. Wild,” he chuckles lightly before turning his attention back to the task at hand.

Ashton lets out a soft ring of laughter and sits down a few feet from Calum. “How long have you been in here?” Ashton does his best to make small talk with the other boy, maybe learn a thing or two about him, considering they were going to be shacking up together.

“Two weeks, maybe?” Calum shrugs. “Lost track of time.”

Ashton begins to get the impression that Calum isn’t much of a talker. Luckily for both of them, Ashton could talk anyone’s ear off any day of the week. “I’ve been out here in the woods for a few days. Two or three, I guess. Just wandering, really. Catching an hour or two of sleep where I can,” he rambles his life story off to Calum. “I had a place a ways up the highway. Small little neighborhood with a couple of houses that had plenty of supplies. Woke up one morning to the sound of a gunshot and saw a couple of guys outside fighting off a pack of walkers. Probably 20 or 30 of them against 3 guys with a gun and two knives. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten out of a place so fast.”

Calum finishes butcher the rabbit and tosses the meat into the pan. He wraps the handle in a thick cloth so he doesn’t burn himself when it heats up and holds it over the fire. Ashton has a hard time deciphering if Calum is actually listening to him or if he just has nothing to say. He decides to keep talking.

“I would go back there if I could. To that neighborhood. I looped back a day after a left, and it didn’t look too overrun, but I didn’t want to risk taking on the walkers that were there on my own. All those houses were stocked with nonperishables and things to use as weapons and just random stuff. Kind of felt like a normal life for awhile back there…” He loses himself in thought for a moment, thinking about his family and friends, all long gone now, to his knowledge.

“Were you alone? Back in that neighborhood?” Calum’s voice pulls Ashton from his trance. His big, brown eyes stare into Ashton’s green pair.

“Uh, not at first,” Ashton starts. “There was two others. A girl and a guy that I went to school with, used to live down the street from me. They went out one day to check out the town and see what they could gather up. Never came back.” He presses his lips together in a firm line. As much as he hates to think they would ever do it to him, he hopes they ran off to be on their own and are somewhere, still alive and fighting. That was unlikely, though. If someone didn’t come back, they were dead or bitten. It was a harsh reality that Ashton had began to accept.

Calum gives him a solemn nod. “What about you?” Ashton attempts to pry. “What’s your story?”

“Don’t have one,” the brown boy shrugs. “Been here alone for a little while. I was alone until I saved your ass. Now we’re here. That’s all that matters.” Ashton feels shut down and more determined to figure this guy out at the same time.

“Dinner’s ready,” Calum offers after a few minutes of silence between the two. “Stomp that out, will you?” Calum had thrown a thick blanket over the fire to stifle the flames and only a few embers remained. Ashton pounds his boot-clad foot on the ashes to finish extinguishing the fire. Calum waits, and when Ashton is finished, they head back inside together.

Calum portions out the rabbit evenly between himself and Ashton on makeshift plates made from the lids of old containers. They eat in completely silence. The meal is far from satisfying. Ashton pretends like it’s steak to coerce himself into eat the unseasoned, chewy meat.

The sun had begun to set while they were outside and was now dipping below the horizon. What light had been peaking through the broken down slats of the shack was now gone. The faint light from the lantern still illuminated the room, but both Calum and Ashton know that they would have to turn it off soon to keep themselves concealed.

“You can sleep on the cot tonight, if you want. Look like you could use a good night’s sleep,” Calum says softly as he shuffles around the room.

“You sure?” Ashton asks. He realizes that he questions Calum every time he offers something. He wonders if Calum has picked up on that.

Calum gives him a nod and pulls a blanket and pillow out of a closet that Ashton had not even noticed. “Yeah, I’ll take the floor.” Calum sets up a place for himself away from the door, but not too close to the cot.

“Thanks, dude,” Ashton smiles. He picks up his own backpack and tosses it over by the cot. “Water?” he offers, pulling a large bottle out of his bag and holding it out towards Calum.

Calum silently takes the bottle and sucks down a few gulps. He hands the bottle back to Ashton, who does the same. Ashton looks inside his bag and realizes the little food and water he gathered from the house before he ran off is dwindling. He puts the thought aside and decides he can bring it up with Calum the next day.

The cot is far from comfortable. Ashton can feel the springs digging into his back and sides and the blanket on top is scratchy and makes his entire body itch. Better than the forest floor, though. “Gonna turn this out,” Calum notes quietly before flicking the switch on the lantern. The room is plummeted into complete darkness. Calum settles on the floor and silence encompasses them. The sound of their breathing and the faint wind whipping around the trees and the house are the only sounds that can be heard.

Ashton lies in thought for a few minutes, mostly about his family and his friends and how the world has gone entirely to shit. As that last thought crosses his mind, though, Ashton thinks of Calum and how his kindness is the only reason he is alive. “Calum?” Ashton says quietly, interrupting the peace that had fallen over them.

“Yeah?” the other boy answers. Ashton can hear the rustle of his pillow.

“Thank you,” Ashton replies, his voice near a whisper. Calum hums an acknowledgement, and that’s enough for Ashton. He lets his eyes droop and stills as sleep envelops him.

 

+++

Ashton wakes up to the sound of soft, careful of footsteps. His eyes flutter open and have no problem adjusting to the thin streams of golden light that are peeking through the loose slats of the shack. Calum is walking around the room shirtless. Ashton inspects his body silently. His toned arms are littered with scatter tattoos — a chief head, a bird, a few words he can’t make out from across the room. His stomach and chest look strong, but in a soft, undefined way. Tattoos of roman numerals and a feather sit on his collarbones. Ashton wonders what they mean.

Calum notices the other boy is awake as he pulls an olive green t-shirt out of his backpack. He pulls the cotton fabric over his head and Ashton ogles at how it grips his body in the best places. He sits up in the cot and feels the crick in his neck from the stiff springs. Despite the bed's bumpy, hard texture, he had gotten the best sleep he had in days on that cot.

“Morning,” Calum says with a nod. He riffles through his bag and pulls out a can full of nuts. He takes a handful and passes it off to Ashton.

“Thanks,” Ashton answers as he takes the can. He snacks on a few cashews quietly. “I’ve got some supplies in my pack — food, water, that kind of thing — but it’s running pretty low,” he tells Calum between bites.

Calum gives him a slight nod. “Yeah, I got a few things, but between the two of us, it’s gonna run out soon.”

“There’s a town about a mile or two away with some convenience stores and stuff. We could probably make a run down there and scavenge for stuff,” Ashton explains. He passes the can of nuts back to Calum and pulls out a water bottle. He takes a few swigs while Calum considers his plan.

“Is it safe?” Calum wonders out loud.

Ashton shrugs. “Haven’t been there for awhile. Do you just have that knife?” He nods his chin towards the butcher knife Calum placed on the small table the night before.

“I have a gun, too. Only a few rounds left, though. I try not to use it. Sound attracts them, you know?” Calum asks rhetorically. He walks over to a second, larger bag in the corner of the room by Ashton and rifles through it. He pulls out a small hand gun and a single box of bullets.

“Could come in handy in case we get stuck,” Ashton says. He pushes himself up off the cot. He picks the shirt he discarded onto the floor in his sleep and pulls it back on. He convinces himself that Calum’s eyes aren’t lingering on his bare chest.

Calum checks the safety on the gun and tucks it into the waistband of his pants. The two gather what they need from around the shack and stuff it inside their backpacks. When they both have their bags hoisted over their shoulders, Calum pushes open the door slowly, doing his best to muffle the inevitable creaking of the rusty hinges.

Their eyes dart around the forest as they step outside. The morning light is brighter than Ashton expected and he takes a minute to adjust. Calum takes the first steps into the more heavily wooded area, his knife tightly clutched in his fist. Ashton clings to his machete.

Calum walks in front of Ashton as they make their way towards the road. Walking along a clear path like that would help direct them and make them feel more relaxed. The woods allowed for cover, both for them and walkers. They might be exposed traveling down an open street, but so would any oncoming walkers. It would give them a better chance to fight if they could see their target approaching.

They emerge onto the open road within a few minutes. It’s still strange for Ashton and Calum to see what was once a highway completely free of cars. Their increased comfort is evident in the way their shoulders droop and their walking pace becomes more leisurely. Ashton even feels comfortable enough to talk.

“Are you from around here?” Ashton asks as they walk down the center of the road side by side.

Calum shakes his head. “We — I had a car when it all started. Drove a couple hundred miles south before the thing gave out.”

Ashton nods. “I grew up maybe 20 miles away. We used to come shopping in this town we’re going to. So weird to see it like it is now.”

Calum murmurs something inaudibly and Ashton lets it go. He wasn’t going to force the quiet boy to make small talk. He would talk when he had something to say.

The town sprouts up out of nothing. One minute, they are walking down the road, bordered by thick trees on both sides, and the next they are in the middle of the town square, shops and restaurants surrounding them. A few walkers linger around the streets.

Calum makes his way towards what once was a drugstore. Ashton follows him towards the large, ominous building. It looms over them and the emptiness and silence leave a unsettled feeling in his stomach.

A walker senses their scent and approaches them on the left side. Calum casually, almost thoughtlessly, drives his knife into it’s skull when it is within an arms length. The body crumples to the ground and he keeps walking. Ashton freezes in astonishment for a moment. He was so effortless in his motions, like killing was engrained in his muscle memory. That doesn't surprise him that much, though. It was kill or be killed now, and Calum had clearly adopted the kill part of that philosophy.

They push open the double doors to the drugstore and look around the dark building. The only source of light is the sun streaming in through the long windows that border the entire shop, but the mid-morning daylight is enough to make everything in the room clear.

Calum holds up his knife while he shuffles through the aisles. He nods towards the other side of the store as if to tell Ashton to scope out the other half. Ashton holds his machete in a ready position while he walks as quietly as his thick boots will let him.

Ashton rounds his way into what once was a shampoo aisle and sees a short figure standing at the other side. The woman whips around and Ashton’s heart immediately starts pounding in his ears. The walker stumble towards him, hungry groans escaping her mouth as she waves her arms out in front of her, reaching for Ashton despite the distance between them. Ashton swings his machete back with both arms and brings them down with brute force on the woman’s skull. Blood spatters from the wound and onto Ashton’s tan pants and dark brown shirt. She falls to the ground and Ashton steps over the lifeless body to continue checking the store.

He meets up with Calum in a center aisle. “Got one back there,” Ashton mentions when they confirm the store is clear.

“I heard it go down,” Calum replies as he begins to walk back towards the grocery area of the store.

Ashton follows him to the back of the store. They entire place is a mess, with toiletries littering nearly every inch of the ground. They step around discarded bottles of shampoo and shower gel. Ashton thinks about what he would give for a hot shower.

The grocery is surprisingly stacked up with nonperishables. Both boys begin stuffing cans into their bags — soups, vegetables, beans, whatever they can get their hands on. Ashton leaves some room in his bag and loops through the area to look for water. He finds where the bottles used to be, but the shelves are completely empty.

Calum comes up behind him quietly, almost scaring him to death. “Sucks,” Calum says as he surveys the empty shelves.

“Let me go look for something,” Ashton says, an idea coming to his head. He heads through the store and comes across a wall full of reusable water bottles. He looks through all of them before he finds what he wants. He pulls two bottles from the shelf and heads back to where Calum is checking expiration dates on granola bars and stuffing them into his bag.

“Water bottles with built in filters,” Ashton presents Calum with the bottle.

Calum smiles down the bottle and back up at Ashton. “Nice,” he answers. His eyes and cheeks crinkle when he smiles, Ashton notices. Small dimples appear in his cheeks. Ashton likes his smile. Like, a lot.

“I think we’re set,” Calum says after a few more minutes of stashing food in their bags. Ashton had parted with him to grab some medicine and bandages just in case and had just rejoined Calum.

Ashton nods in agreement and they both zip up their overflowing bags. Calum leads the way out of the store and Ashton follows him absentmindedly. He’s actually looking at the way Calum’s butt looks in his fitted khaki pants, but he would never admit that. He rams straight into Calum’s back when the brown boy stops in his tracks. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath.

Ashton looks past him and notices a mob of walkers that has gathered outside. They haven’t spotted the boys or assembled near the door yet, but there was no way they could escape back to the road unseen.

“Back door?” Ashton questions, not knowing if the store even has one.

Calum nods and turns around. They walk to the back of the store and into what once was a stock room. A large, metal door sits in the back corner. Calum strides over and pushes it open slowly. An alarm begins to sound.

“You’re kidding,” Calum groans. He pushes out of the door and looks around. He waves for Ashton to follow, and Ashton assumes that means the coast is clear.

He stumbles out of the door and realizes that the wave was a come help me wave and not a we’re good to go wave. Five or so walkers are closing in on Calum. Calum takes a swing at one and takes him down. Ashton keeps his back to Calum and takes down a massive guy who is just inches away from grabbing him by the throat. Ashton takes a moment to look at the guys body and wonders what he did for a living in his past life. He looked like a WWE superstar.

His moment of thought almost costs him his life. A walker is grabbing his arm and that pulls him back to the situation at hand. He knocks her down with a foot to the guy and smashes her head in with his foot, then follows up with the machete. The blood splatters in every direction.

Ashton lets out a long sigh of relief when he realizes Calum had taken down the other walkers around them. He checks his forearm where the walker was grappling with him for scratches. Nothing had broke the skin, thankfully.

“Let’s go!” Calum shouts over the blazing sound of the alarm that was sure to attract every walker in a 5 mile radius. Calum takes off running and Ashton quickly begins to jog after him. He has to pick up his pace slightly to keep up — Calum is fast.

They plunge into the wooded area on the outskirts of town instead of continuing down the road like they had on their way in. The thick trees provide cover from the walkers that were in pursuit of them. They check over their shoulders and don’t see any of them following closely.

“That was insane,” Calum breathes, catching his breath. He bends over slightly and puts his strong hands on his thighs. Ashton slows down as he catches up to him. He lagged behind a few steps for the whole run into the woods.

Ashton pants for a moment and nods before answering. “I’m high on adrenaline,” he says with a smile.

Calum straightens his back and looks at the blonde boy. Their eyes are locked together, the smirk still playing along Ashton’s lips. Calum’s eyes flick across his face — his lips, more precisely. Ashton can sense him take the smallest step forward. Calum’s tongue flips over his own mouth slowly, his eyes still engaged with Ashton’s.

The snap of a twig in the distance drives Calum’s eyes away. “We better get going,” he mumbles, taking a step away from Ashton. He reaches down into the bottom of his backpack and pulls out a t-shirt, then starts ripping it into strips. He ties one around a low branch of a nearby tree.

“Gonna get them off our tracks with my scent,” he explains as he starts walking off in the opposite direction of the house. He breaks into a slow jog and continues tying pieces of the shirt around tree branches every few hundred feet. Ashton jogs behind him and tries to steady his breath. He convinces himself he’s still recovering from the dead sprint into the woods, but in the back of his mind, he can’t help but replay the look on Calum’s face as he surveyed his own. He snaps his mind out of it when Calum tosses a few strips of the t-shirt to him and tells him to tie them on some trees as they run. Ashton wonders how he got his keen survival skills — he never would have thought of something as inventive as scent marking to throw the walkers off their path.

Calum ties the last of the fabric strips around a tree. They can hear the faint groans and stumbles of walkers in the distance, but they are too far behind to be seen through the thick forest. “Should be good,” Calum says as he finishes the knot. “Absolute shit luck, with that alarm,” he adds as he turns and continues his light jog towards that cabin.

Ashton nods. “Must’ve been battery powered or something,” he answers. Calum shakes his head in agreement and falls silent again. Ashton is beginning to get used to the curt conversations they shared.

They stumble upon the cabin faster than Ashton expected they would. Calum navigates them back effortlessly, like he had been living in these woods for his entire life. He considers that that could be true for a moment. Calum had been so vague about his past. He could have been raised by wolves in the forest for all Ashton knows about him.

The familiar creak of the door sounds when Calum pushes it open. They quickly survey the room to make sure no one or nothing had snuck inside when they were out. Once they feel assured that they’re alone, they drop their bags to the ground and look through their pickings. Mostly everything is canned — soup, vegetables, fruit, beans — but there’s a few random things that have shockingly long shelf lives in the bags too — a few small bags of potato chips, boxed mac and cheese, chocolate covered pretzels.

“Chocolate…” Calum practically moans when he sees Ashton pluck the pretzels out of his backpack.

“I think we deserve them,” Ashton smiles and cracks open the bag. He takes a few out and hands the rest to Calum. He places one in his mouth and savors the sweet taste of the milk chocolate against the saltiness of the pretzel.

Calum’s eyes crinkle into a smile as he watches Ashton eat. His dimples come out and Ashton silently wishes that he could see that face more often. Calum takes a pretzel from the bag and plops it against his own tongue.

“Wow. I needed this,” he says quietly, almost as if he is talking to himself.

“I missed chocolate so much,” Ashton agrees. They eat quietly for a few minutes, but unlike the awkward silence that fills the air between them, both boys find themselves comfortable in the quietness, with the faint sounds of the forest billowing into the shack, muffled by the four walls around them.

“Did you lose your family?” Calum pipes up out of nowhere. Ashton furrows his eyebrows. He has only known Calum for a day, but from what he collected, he was not the type to start asking prying questions like that. That was Ashton’s job.

Calum watches Ashton with expecting eyes, but his expression is soft, like his question is charged with genuine interest and slight concern. Ashton offers a small nod. “Before I could even get to them. I was on a road trip with some mates,” he explains. “We turned around when we heard about the outbreak of the sickness, but by the time we got back they had already taken over the whole town. Barely anyone made it out. We ran into some of my neighbors when we were getting out of there. They told me my mom and siblings…” he trails off. A frog builds in his throat and he can’t bring himself to keep talking. He lets his eyes, which were fixated on the floorboards in front of him, travel up to meet Calum’s.

Calum’s brown eyes are focused on Ashton’s teary ones. He gives him a knowing look, like he knows just what it feels like to lose family without getting to say goodbye. Before Ashton can muster up the voice to ask about his story, Calum starts talking. “I lost them two weeks ago,” he whispers. “My sister and my parents. We were all out here in the woods a few miles away. There was another little house that we were in. I went out to set traps one day and came back a few hours later and they were —,” he pause and coughs to cover up the crack in his voice. “There were just — just traces of them — parts of them. Walkers everywhere just — just _feeding_ on them.” A long, shaky sigh escapes his lips. “I went crazy. Killed all of them — probably 10 of them on my own. Just sat there for — I don’t know — two days maybe. Just kind of staring at the ground. Shock, I guess.” He tells the story almost emotionlessly, like he’s blocked himself from feeling anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” Ashton whispers, lost for any other comforting words. He watches as the brown boy pries his eyes away from his own and peers down on his hands. Calum fiddles his thumbs and nods. The motion shakes his entire body.

The sound of a deep breath rushing from Calum’s lungs fills the silence. “It feels so good to just, I don’t know, talk about it.” Calum’s shoulders look less tense, Ashton notices. He had been carrying the weight of the trauma for weeks and vocalizing it to the other boy was helping him cope.

Subconsciously, Ashton’s hand travels to Calum’s leg. He had always been good at comforting people and it was almost second nature to him. Calum’s brown eyes take in the sight of Ashton’s long fingers resting on his thigh, just above his knee. He looks over at Ashton and Ashton draws his hand away. “Sorry,” he mumbles. The rosy color on his cheeks shows his embarrassment. He realizes that Calum didn’t want or need his comfort, he just needed a ear to listen.

Calum shakes his head. “No, you’re good dude.” He pushes himself off the ground and begins sticking items into the small duffle back he had pulled the gun out of earlier. “Should probably keep this stuff packed in case we need to get out of here quickly,” he says, breaking out of the emotional, bonding moment and back into survival mode.

Ashton helps him put things back into the bags. As he stuffs a box of granola bars into Calum’s duffle, their fingers brush. A pit grows in Ashton’s stomach and he swears he can feel an actual spark. Their eyes meet, more in a passing glance than in a locked stare, but Ashton senses that Calum felt it too. They continue cleaning up in silence.

It is only mid-afternoon when they have all of their new supplies packed up. Neither boy seems to know what to do with themselves. They both look around the room awkwardly for awhile, trying to figure out what could possibly be productive. Ashton finally settles on the bottom of the cot, his back against the wall and his feet dangling off the edge. Calum still looks uncomfortable, but he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a notebook and pen. He settles at the small table across the room and the chair whines as he sits down. He begins scribbling on a blank page in the book. Ashton watches out of the corner of his eye, trying to make himself look busy pulling at a loose thread on the seam of his pants.

A hum slips from Calum’s throat while he writes. Ashton turns his head to full on stare at him, not caring to hide his curious eyes anymore. “What are you writing?” He finds the thought coming out of his mouth unintentionally.

Calum turns to look at Ashton. Tension rises in his shoulders again. “Nothing,” he mumbles, a blush rising up his cheeks. “Poetry,” he admits after a moment of thought.

A slight smile grows on Ashton’s face. “Wouldn’t take you for a poetry kind of guy,” he says with a cock of his head.

Calum’s eyes fall into a squint. “Why’s that?”

“Nothing,” Ashton says, slightly embarrassed that he even said that. “Just don’t seem like the type.”

“I was a musician,” Calum states. “Well, I am a musician, I guess. Just don’t have any instruments now. It’s lyrics, I guess, what I’m writing. But I can’t write the harmonies without a guitar or piano, so I guess it’s just poetry,” he shrugs as if it’s nothing.

Ashton stares, partially dumfounded and partially impressed. He doesn’t really know what to say, so he just says, “wow, that’s sick,” and goes back to picking at the loose thread on his pants.

“What did you do? Like, for a living?” Calum asks.

Ashton laughs. “I worked at KFC.”

Calum surveys the other boys face to see if he’s kidding. “KFC?” he questions.

“Fucking KFC,” he laughs out. Calum stares for another moment before breaking out into laughter. The crinkles and dimples in his face return as he lets out a nearly silent laugh — more breathing and gasping than actually laughter.

They calm their laughter after a minute and shake their heads at each other, their smiles still on their faces. “The apocalypse might have been a blessing in disguise. I was so sick of chicken,” Ashton admits.

“What I would do for some fried chicken right now…” Calum trails off with a playful smirk on his lips.

Ashton fake gags. “No thanks, bro.”

Their light laughter and banter fills the shack for the rest of the afternoon. It feels like Calum is finally feeling comfortable with Ashton. Even though Calum was saving Ashton’s life just 24 hours ago, it feels like they had known each other for awhile, and Ashton was thankful that the wall Calum had put up was coming down. They share stories about their past lives — Calum’s small scale music career and constant evenings playing to 12 uninterested people in dive bars, Ashton’s nights out with his friends that almost always ended with someone falling down the concrete steps leading up to their apartment, and the hundreds of time when their paths could have and may have crossed, but they would never know if they actually did. For awhile, it feels like the world isn’t ending outside of their shack and that everything might just be okay.

They clear up the wood burning stove that sits in the corner when they notice the sun has set and they want to eat some soup for dinner. It’s too dark to build a fire outside without bringing attention to themselves, so they work for awhile to get stove inside the shack working, and finally get it to burn well enough to heat up the cans. They eat over stories of past relationships and old friends — people of a former life who seem millions of miles away from their small cabin.

Ashton tells Calum to take the cot for the night. “We can alternate nights,” he says, thinking that they will be spending many more days in the shack. Calum protests slightly, but Ashton insists that it’s the most fair way to go about their sleeping arrangements for the time being.

When Calum strips down to his boxers to sleep in, Ashton tries really hard not to stare, but Calum catches his green eyes checking out the bulge in his grey boxer briefs and raises his eyebrows playfully. Ashton goes fluorescent red and flicks off the lantern in the middle of the room to hide his blush. Calum’s soft chuckle is that last thing he hears before he drifts off to sleep.

 

+++

Ashton was always a light sleeper, so it’s not surprise when he wakes up to the sound of ruffling leaves, dragging feet, and groans. He wipes the sleep from his eyes in the still dark shack. As he wakes up, he realizes what the sound coming from outside is, and as if on cue, moonlight streams into the shack, illuminating himself, Calum, and the walker that is falling it’s way inside.

“Calum! Walker!” Ashton shouts, grappling for the machete he placed near his makeshift bed on the floor before going to sleep. Calum moans a half-asleep, incoherent sound. “Calum!” Ashton yells again, and the dark-haired boy is up. The walker had made it up the steps into the shack by now, and Ashton was on his feet, ready to take him on.

Calum stumbles his half naked body out of the cot and grabs his knife that was set on the table a few feet away. His help is unnecessary, though, because Ashton is already driving his weapon deep in the walker’s skull and kicking it in the stomach to knock it down for extra measure. Ashton looks over at the other boy and they share a smile. “Well, I’m awake now,” Calum says. His eyes not-so-subtly glaze over Ashton’s bare torso.

A chill crawls up Ashton’s spine and he intakes a sharp breath when Calum steps closer to him. “That adrenaline again…” Ashton mumbles softly. Calum is less than a foot away from him now, and Ashton can feel the heat radiating between their bare bodies.

There are more groans and shuffling outside the cabin. Both boys whip their heads around and see a pack of walkers — at least 5 of them — approaching the cabin. Calum grabs his pants from the ground and pulls them on quickly before dragging the body of the recently dead walker outside behind him. Ashton quickly dresses himself and stuffs the barrel of Calum’s gun into his waistband for extra precaution.

They meet back up outside the front of the cabin and get to work, driving their knives into the heads of the walkers that are converging on them. They work like a well oiled machine, knocking down the blood thirsty bodies that threaten them and watching each others backs. Just as Ashton pulls his knife from the skull of a walker, he hears a shuffle and thump, followed by Calum yelling, “Ash! Help!”

Ashton spins around so quickly that he nearly falls. A walker has Calum pinned down and Ashton spots his knife a few feet away in a pile of leaves. He acts without much thought. He reaches into his waistband and grabs the gun, flicks off the safety, and fires. He hits the walker’s arm and shoots again, this time hitting it dead in the side of the head. All those days at the shooting range with his friends paid off.

Calum pushes the dead body off him and scrambles for his knife as another walker shuffles towards him. Ashton turns his attention away from Calum and back to the walker that is about to grab him. He already has the gun at the ready, so he fires it at close range into the walker’s head. He lets out a sigh of relief as Calum takes down the last walker. At least 15 dead bodies surround the area around the cabin.

“Guess we’re even,” Calum smirks as he closes the distance between himself and Ashton, nodding towards the gun in the boy’s hand.

Ashton smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Calum’s hand reaches up and brushes a curl off Ashton’s forehead. Ashton holds his breath. Calum presses his lips together. “We should probably get out of here. Gun shots are gonna attract all the ones in the area.” He retracts his hand that was resting on the side of Ashton’s head. Ashton exhales. They walk back into the shack and grab their bags, double check that they have everything, and start walking off through the forest.

“Where are we gonna go?” Ashton asks as they walk. The sun has begun to rise in the distance and the blue glow of the moonlight is slowly being replaced with the warm, early morning sun.

Calum doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking towards the road and does his best to keep his footfalls quiet.

“We could maybe try that neighborhood I was in before,” Ashton mentions when they reach the highway. “There weren’t too many walkers. Can’t hurt to try.”

Calum doesn’t answer again. He stops walking, though, and turns towards Ashton. Ashton stops too, and looks into Calum’s wide, brown eyes.

“We would both be dead, you know?” Calum says softly, near a whisper. “Without each other, we would have died. You would have died yesterday, I would have died tonight. This — life — it would have been over. We would be eaten alive or become one of those things. Without each other, we would have nothing.” His voice cracks as he talks. Ashton can hear the emotion in it.

“We would be dead without each other,” Ashton echoes.

“We would be dead,” Calum says again. He is inches away from Ashton now. The air around them feels calm and charged at the same time. Ashton feels like he can’t breathe.

Ashton can no longer muster up words, so he just nods in agreement. Their hot breath is mingling. They’re so close they can practically hear each other’s heartbeats. Ashton can’t handle the tension anymore. He presses his lips against Calum’s full mouth and instantly feels lightheaded. Calum’s lips are everything he imagined and more — plump and warm and wet and inviting. Their mouths work together like their bodies did when they fought. They kiss effortlessly and synchronously. Ashton tugs Calum’s bottom lip between his teeth before he pulls away from the kiss entirely.

“We need each other,” Ashton whispers, his voice barely audible. Their foreheads lean together for another moment before Calum pulls back.

“We should get going,” he says, cocking his head to the side, pointing down the road. Ashton nods in agreement and takes a deep breath before they continue down the highway.

Calum’s fingers graze Ashton’s while they walk and they interlock their fingers. Ashton doesn’t mind the sweat the grows between their palms as the air heats up with the sunrise. Calum likes the way Ashton’s long fingers fit perfectly between his own. They make their way down the road and away from the woods that housed many memories of their past lives and move on to a new place to house new ones. Calum and Ashton only had each other now — no family, no friends, just each other — and they really did need each other.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://cashtonjpg.tumblr.com) about how amazing cashton is thanks bye love u all xo


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